The transportation problem continues to exercise the minds of the people of the United States in a way that the people of Great Britain can but imperfectly appreciate. The cost of conveying traffic from Chicago to New York has already been brought down to an average of 6·6 cents per bushel for water, and 10 to 12 cents for rail transport. In other words, the cost of transporting a ton of goods between the two greatest commercial cities of the New World has been brought down to ·09_d._ by water, and 0·11_d._ by land. So notable an achievement ought, one would naturally suppose, to satisfy the insatiable appetite of our American friends for cheap transportation, but so far from this being the case, they are now considering how far it is possible to reduce the 6·6 cent water-rate to five or even four cents, and the possibility is hinted at of reducing the rates to three cents per bushel,[120] which would be a fraction over 0·04_d._ per ton per mile. This would mean, if actually accomplished, that a ton of goods might be carried between London and Edinburgh—a distance of over 400 miles—for 16_d._, or, to put the matter in a way that may be readily appreciated, the cost of the transport of the 2,463,000 tons of coal conveyed by sea from Newcastle to London in 1888 would be reduced to 1_s._ per ton, and the inhabitants of London might thus reckon on having their coal supplies almost as cheaply as if they lived within thirty miles of the mines. In order, however, to bring about the contemplated further reduction of the cost of transport between Chicago and New York, it is proposed to construct a New Erie Canal. The cost would be stupendous. It has been calculated at about 150 millions of dollars, but it would probably involve a still larger expenditure, inasmuch as ship canals seldom come within their estimates. A remarkable calculation has been made, by way of justifying this large outlay. It is reckoned that if one cent alone can be saved on the cost of transporting a bushel of wheat over this route, it would mean a total saving of about nineteen million of dollars on the products of the forest, the field, and the mine, which are tributary to the great American lakes. The American Society of Civil Engineers were recently called upon to consider a project for “the widening, deepening, and necessary rectification of the worst curvatures of the present Erie Canal, from Buffalo to Newark, about 130 miles; the construction of a new canal from Newark to Utica, about 115 miles; the canalisation of the Mohawk River from Utica to Troy, about 110 miles; and the improvement of the Hudson river from Troy to Four Mile Point, in Coxsackie, a distance of about thirty miles.”